


Subservient

by GhostHost



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Claiming, Culture Shock, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Kink, Medical Procedures, More in fic, Recovery, Scarification
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:33:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9629903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostHost/pseuds/GhostHost
Summary: Deadlock's mutiny against Turmoil wasn't supposed to fail. He wasn't supposed to run, to leave in such a state that even he's surprised he can fly a pod. He absolutely was not supposed to crash land on the same space port the famous Autobot medic was hiding out on, but above all?He never, ever expected for the very same mech to claim Deadlock as his.Pity Ratchet doesn't know that's what he's done...(Or, Ratchet's poor grasp of Deception culture ends up gaining him a permanent body guard with the one mech he's never been able to forget.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Why are you starting ANOTHER series?' I asked myself, while posting this. Because I've lost control of my life fanfiction wise, apparently. Anyway this is the first Deadlock/Ratchet prompt that’s bullied it’s way to the front of my writing queue. This fic starts out with short chapters, I’m kinda hoping to keep it that way, I highly doubt it will. My resolve will likely break somewhere around the angsty fluffy part and ya’ll will get a 30 page essay of a chapter. It’s just how I roll. 
> 
> A large thank you to Owlphallacies who braved this mess to edit it! 
> 
> Warnings: Deadlock gets his ass kicked, humiliation, and that's really it, for this one. Warnings are provided per chapter! If you would like something listed that is not please drop me a comment or message me on Tumblr and I’ll stick it up here!

* * *

 

He’s  _ weak. _

It wasn't something he’s had to face in a long time, but it’s never truly left him. Turmoil has made certain he's brought it back to the surface, forces Deadlock to face it - to  _ admit  _ it- and that has been worse than any beating he’s ever taken. 

Being forced to spit out those words, through rivets of dark energon, to tell the crew he’s served with that he’s not only failed but never had a chance to succeed to begin with. That Turmoil has only ever allowed his behaviors and wasn't any longer.

_ He was bent down, Turmoil’s pede heavy on his back, his plating a twisted mess. He’s barely hanging on, optical feed fritzing and still it wasn’t enough. Still, he fought. Until it was clear he wouldn’t survive, wouldn’t come back from this unless he said what Turmoil wanted.  _

It felt like murder. 

His last rebellion was made not to prove Turmoil wrong, but to save face. Deadlock’s claim for anyone who asked was that he fled because he understood how a mutiny  _ worked _ . What happened to those who committed it. That he has life left in him to prove that fragger wrong-but it’s not true. Excuses tumble through his processor as he guides the pod he stole but at his spark he knows that’s what they are. Excuses. 

Nothing more.

All so he wouldn’t have to face his ultimate horror. To tell  _ Megatron _ he failed. 

Deadlock can face death, but not that. Never that. 

The pod’s been damaged by laser-fire. It’s lasted long enough for one jump, crashed right after. He doesn’t know if it’ll be enough to buy him time- the pod wasn't built for long jumps, after all. Just short hops through space. Turmoil had no doubt has already tracked it but even half dead, Deadlock has a few tricks left in him. 

He uses them all, and was unconscious by the time the local species took him away from the resulting crash. 

He’s been here enough times-taken by strangers after he’s passed out and close to death-that he doesn’t fear the unknown. He knows what might happen to him-he’s had all of it happen before. It’s been a long time since he’s been in the gutters but those things never really leave you. 

Deadlock doesn’t care who he wakes up to, as long as it’s not Turmoil.

He’s quick to take that back though, when he does online. He had been running every scenario in his head before he went down and never once was this an option. 

It isn’t the Autobadge or the red medic’s cross that disturbs him. Waking to a general Autobot medic was in the cards after all. No, what’s shocking, what Deadlock never considered, is this mech in particular. 

_ Ratchet. _

His spark constricts on itself when his fragged vision finally processes the owner of the sharp blue optics and his vents catch-because this? 

This is worse than Turmoil. This is worse than _ anything.  _

 

xXx

Ratchet’s stuck.

It’s partly his own fault, he can admit that. It’s  _ mostly  _ the fault of too-brave Autobots going charging into Con territory on a suicide mission who promptly got over their heads, and  _ that  _ is a fact he’ll shout from the rooftops. 

_ ‘Stupid fragging frontline warriors!’ _

Sure, technically, Ratchet had also gone charging into Con territory, right into the heart of a battle to provide medical aid, but that was a different matter entirely. For one, he was the only qualified medic anywhere near this particular sector of planets. Two, he and the small crew escorting him from Base Centari back to the Ark consisted of some of the Prime’s best fighters, who had mostly been in agreement with the detour and three- well, he can also admit he’s a hypocrite. One that keeps people alive and fighting and he can certainly get a pass for that, thanks! 

He had saved four lives. Handed them off to the escort team to get them back to the transport ship.  Sent two more off in critical condition, knowing that if the ship made it to the next sector, there would be a qualified team there to pull them from the brink. 

He’d lost five. The last one…

The last one could have made it. If Ratchet had been quicker. Faster. Smarter. Better.

If the circumstances were different. If they weren’t under fire. If they hadn’t gotten dragged into the center of the battle-if his escorts hadn’t been forcibly separated from him in the fight. Ratchet had been close, _ so close.  _ The guttering spark had flared-in time to the fragging bomb the ‘Con’s had dropped. 

Supposedly this group of ‘Cons wasn’t supposed to have access to that kind of weaponry. They were just a small outpost, chasing Autobots out of the edge of ‘Con territory. Nothing the Twins and Mirage couldn’t handle. 

Rule one of a battle-never assume.

The bomb was powerful enough to rip into the ground around them. The ‘Cons had clearly trained with it, or something like it, and Ratchet been forced to abandon his charge to save himself. 

The Autobot’s transport, a small shuttle to begin with, made for stealth and speed alone, had been overwhelmed by ‘Cons in the confusion. The Twin’s had long been separated from the medic and been much closer to the transport-Ratchet himself closer to a small ‘Con pod. 

He’d hijacked it, and comm’d the ‘Bot transport to just  _ leave. _

Now he waited, on the edge of the Sector, with a useless, near-broken pod and enough guilt to drown a mech. The last message he was able to get out was coded, asking for rescue at a spaceport in this area but he wasn’t stupid enough to say which one. 

Transmissions this close to enemy lines were guaranteed to be compromised. 

Someone would come. Ratchet was too important to be left behind-he doesn’t even want to think about how their medical staff needs him. How his disappearance will stress his staff, let alone Command.  They likely will need to regroup to do it, so he’s stuck renting a room with his emergency credits, plating crawling with anxiety, forced to focus on nothing but what he’s done wrong.

His work has always kept his sins from catching up to him. Without it, Ratchet can barely keep himself afloat. 

So he offered himself out to the locals. 

Spaceports have a wide variety of life crawling about. Mechs of all kinds aren’t unusual and though Ratchet’s higher medical skills pertain only to Cybertronians, he can easily fix minor issues of other life forms. Even some organic species, if he’s got their manuals and medical data. He had never been one to shy away from the organic. Never found their lives any less important than his own either. 

When hundreds of thousands of your own species died, some of them by your very hands, you got good at respecting the things still living, no matter their form or makeup. 

Word had gotten out fast. He worked for cheap, kept information closely and didn’t ask a lot of questions. Same rules he’d had in Dead End, and they worked their magic here.

Enough for a group of well-meaning travelers to bring him a half-dead Cybertronian. 

More than half-dead-Ratchet’s not sure he can save him. He doesn’t have a lot of materials, knew from the second he’d opened his door that the chances of the mech living was slim. Main lines cut, major trauma to internals, right arm barely hanging in its socket...

He didn’t even see the ‘Con badge into he was elbows deep in internals. 

It didn’t matter. Single pod crash? This far out, in this string of ports? Mech had either defected or was considered a traitor and was on the run. Not that it would have mattered if he’d been downed by Autobots-Ratchet had taken an oath-and his oath didn’t just pertain to Autobots. 

The goal of the war was to stop it. Realistically, that meant that at some point, badges would be put aside, and mechs from all sides of the war, including the badgeless, would reclaim Cybertron. Together. 

Ratchet wanted to see that reality sooner rather than later.  Even if it meant accepting those who had killed mechs he knew, mechs dear to him. Just as mechs on the other side would accept him-despite his own actions. 

Of course thinking all of this and being confronted directly with it was two different things. 

This wasn’t the first ‘Con he saved and wouldn’t be the last-but he didn’t realize just whose life he was fighting for until the intensive surgeries had finished. He’d wiped the mech down, noting what he could of his frame and remaining injuries so he could compare it to his own stock and things he could get in the port. He’d gotten to the two head finials when first bout of deja vu came, and made it all the way to the mech’s modifications for his guns before it finally hit.

Deadlock. He had  _ Deadlock _ lying half dead on his table.

A mech no one would question Ratchet about if he died. If anything, saving him would cause more of a fuss-Deadlock’s reputation was as large as his kill count. The ‘Con wouldn’t be grateful. Would likely try to kill him the second he onlined.

Ratchet had one gun left. It would take nothing to fetch it. To shoot an unconscious mech between the optics. Deadlock wouldn’t feel it-would never know what happened. It’d be as painless as a kill could be. 

He knew before he even had the thought that he couldn’t do it. 

The mech lying down before him wasn’t Deadlock. Had never been Deadlock, not to Ratchet. 

This was _ Drift  _ on his recharge slab. The younger ‘bot from Dead End, one of the many Ratchet hadn’t saved. Not properly. Not like he should have. Just sobered him up, kept him from offlining, and sent him on his way.

What would have changed if he’d aided Drift in finding a job? If he had acknowledged the caste system in place to keep mechs like him from leaving  Dead End? Optimus had been there he could have asked for his help, knew Optimus would have done all he could but…

He’d been tired. Grumpy. Under fueled, overworked, frustrated. 

He had _ failed. _

Above everything, all the deaths between them, caused by them, all the reasons he should, if nothing else, walk away, Ratchet couldn’t face a repeat of that 

He might not walk out of this mess alive, but he’d go knowing he’d at last done something right. 

He wipes Drift down, drops his own body down on the floor. The room he’s renting is a single, to small for anything other than a slab and a work bench. Probably for the best-if Deadlock wakes he won’t see Ratchet right away. The medic’s confident the other mech’s injuries will drastically slow him down, if not prevent him from moving outright, and he’s not concerned.

Just a touch worried about what his own conscience will make him do. What even can be done. 

First things first though-he needs to finish fixing the mech up-and find out just what brought him here, in the condition he was in. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third rewrite's a charm! Thank you to Owlphallacies who helped bridge the gap by killing it lol.
> 
> We get more detailed as we go but here's your first look at Con Culture. There's a lot more to what Ratchet's done but he learns it as it evolves. 
> 
> Warnings: I almost forgot to add this. Deadlock's pretty hurt, but we don't go into detail about it--panic attacks, being immobile, claiming, scarification--we don't really go into those last to just yet but they happen,...yeah. Think thats good.

 

* * *

 

Deadlock can’t move.

Can’t talk, can’t use comms, can’t do _anything,_ despite all initial attempts to force it.

He’s completely and purely at the mercy of the medic hovering above him.

What he _does_ have is no sense of time, barely any spatial awareness and an immense amount of pain that’s slowly overtaking each and every concern listed.

Ratchet doesn’t seem to notice the gunner’s online--if he does, he’s ignoring it. _Him._

Not the first time that had happened but definitely the first time he’d been ignored in close proximity and that says more about Deadlock’s own condition than anything else does.

Deadlock can feel a slight--something, passing over him. A scan of some kind, likely. Ratchet’s face is tired, the plating pinched and slightly discolored, the face of someone overworked. Deadlock tries to see beyond him, tries to get his cracked optics to _work,_ and gets a throbbing helm-ache for the effort.

He can’t even tell where he is.

_‘Focus on what you know.’_

Training is beaten into mechs for a reason. Deadlock shifts to focusing, through the hurt. Tries to remember anything that might help him.

He’d challenged Turmoil. He’d been made out to be weak, he ran--

_‘Like the coward you are,_ ’ an inner voice hisses, which is promptly ignored.

\--stolen a ship, been pursued, and crashed.

The Autobots had to have found him then, if _Ratchet_ was tending to his care.

The Autobots had found him and he was entirely at their mercy.

That’s what does it. A whine escapes as abrupt terror nearly whites his optics out. It’s embarrassing, a thing to be denied once he gets a hold of himself but until then emotions war madly within him, the berserker nature rising in a last ditch effort to _do_ something.

_Anything._

This can’t happen again, this utter weakness--he won’t allow it to happen, it _will not happen again-!_

“Drift-- _Drift!”_

Through the haze of fear (and anger, horrible anger, surging after it) Ratchet appears.

“It’s okay, it’s alright---it’s _me!_ ” He shouts that last bit, as though he knew the other things he said weren’t being heard. “It’s Ratchet!”

The words work, the name piercing the murderous haze. Their gazes lock, broken shattered red and pale blue.  He comes back to himself slowly, wondering distantly why the world was shaking until he realized it was his own plating. He’s too hot, he can’t open his vents to cool down, and even without a HUD to tell him he knows he’s headed for a critical failure.

_‘Maybe that would be better.’_ Something deep in him thinks.

_‘Frag you.’_ He thinks back at it.

He’s not dead. Not yet.

Pain and darkness move in waves, one after another and he lets them take him. He’ll wake up again. He knows he will. He’ll deal with whatever happens from there.

xXx

 

It had taken a week. An entire week, and a lot of favors, to pull Drift back from the brink.  Ratchet had taken to sleeping only a few hours a day, taking short naps in-between performing everything from major surgery to check up scans and it’s taken its toll.

He hasn’t had to do something like this in a long, long time.

He’s himself, though. The Chief Medical Officer. This was not beyond him. Nothing _medical_ was beyond him.

He’d been repeating that for a while, often while looking crossly at the ceiling.

Ratchet didn’t believe in Primus, but the god was always convenient when the medic had no one else around to curse at.

Drift was out of it, for the most part. He’d only onlined twice, both times erupting shortly into some kind of seizure. Ratchet had managed to trade to get enough drugs to make a strong anaesthetic but as always, he didn’t want to put full power behind something he’d made, untested.

Mostly untested, anyway.

What was good for him passed as regulation for enough things anyways.

They were three days into week two now, and Drift had remained stable, if unconscious.

Ratchet might have been keeping him that way.

He was exhausted, in desperate need of an actual recharge and the last thing he wanted was a berserker onlining with bad injuries and enough energy to do something about it.

Ratchet wasn’t a fool.

In a fight between him and Drift, the ‘Con would win. Even a fight where said Con was half dead. Definitely a fight where Ratchet was too tired to dodge. He was running out of anesthetic though--and excuses to use it. He needed to wean Deadlock from it now, or face worse consequences later.

That thought made the decision for him.

Ratchet only hoped it was the right one.

He took a vent. Started to process to bring Drift online.

Said a  prayer and hated himself for the habit.

xXx

_“Why fangs?” Ratchet has asked, a near lifetime ago._

_Jazz shot him a grin.  “Guess.”_

_Ratchet rolled his optics. “Do I look like I have time for guesses?”_

“Yes?”

The war was barely underway but it _was_ underway and as the newly minted CMO, Ratchet already knew time was precious. As the equally new head of special operations, Jazz _also_ knew this.

Just like he knew that Ratchet absolutely did not tolerate any games. Especially not the kind special ops liked to play. Not when he had lives on the line. He’d kept them away from the CMO--from the Autobot medics in general, so far as Ratchet knew--but that didn’t mean it would last.

Ratchet hadn’t known Jazz all that long, not really, but he already knew enough of the mech to know boundaries had to be set _now_ if they were going to truly be in leadership positions together. The entire command staff needed to be on the same page.

If they weren’t, they would lose the war.

The sober thoughts changed the weight of his glare and under it, Jazz heaved a dramatic sigh.

“Mech you are just no fun.” He pouted for a moment, before acknowledging Ratchet’s hurry up gesture. “Fine, fine, don’t get your wires in a twist. They’re needed for undercover missions.”

“I knew that’s _why_ you wanted them.” Ratchet huffed. “I also know not every ‘Con has them, so what’s the point of _you_ getting them?” He was absolutely not going to do a purely cosmetic surgery, thanks. He had other things to do today.

“For a mech that spent a while in Dead End you sure didn’t pick up a lot of the culture there.” Jazz teased, but eased into an explanation before the nearing-murderous glare Ratchet leveled at him tried to enact its owner's wishes. “Most of the ‘Cons are made up of lower class mechs, ya? Minors, workers, retail employees.” Jazz hid the shudder at the last bit--retail workers were   _bloodthirsty_ once given an excuse. “Those mechs didn’t start out with weapons, and they don’t have the money to go get them. The ‘Cons are turning out guns as fast as they can but,” Here he shrugged, “we both know both sides are in a race to arm up and train mechs who otherwise don’t know how to fight.”

“So fangs are--what, a cheap weapon?” Ratchet guessed, glare melting into something thoughtful.  Mods were extremely popular, more so right before the war had kicked off. There would have been numerous mechs capable of performing simple cosmetic related surgeries and detail work, and for as much grief as Ratchet was giving Jazz, fangs were fast and easy to install.

“Mmm. Claws too.” Jazz added. “But there’s a bit more to it than that. Bit of a culture growing up around ‘em, now that so many mechs own ‘em.”

That got him a raised optic ridge.

Jazz shrugged again. “Honestly I don’t know if I can give you a short version of it that makes sense. I’ll try though.”

He did.

Mechs from lower castes, in bad places, often couldn’t afford to have things like Conjunx, Amicas, or general formal attachments. Not legally, anyway, considering the cost to have them made official. These castes were made up of mechs who had very little family or support--mechs like MTO’s, or ones whose commissioning was made only for lower-end work. Work that was often dangerous, even if the danger was only due to where their place of employment was. Where they could afford to live off said employments meager salary.

With the rise of claws and fangs and things that could create marks and scars, a different type of social claim was taking place. Something born from desperation and the gladiator pits.

Megatron claimed it was based on the idea that everyone had a right to do--anything. Offer anything. Be anything. Power took place in all forms and with the former society rules collapsing, anyone could align themselves with anyone else, without fear of retribution. Without thinking about class status and function. So long as both parties consented, a weaker mech could be protected by a stronger one if they did something for the stronger in return. Hierarchy, groups, families, were being forged based on promises made in literal energon, by the marks given to each other personally. Just like everything else Megatron endorsed, the idea had spread quickly.

Jazz explained all of this very, _very_ poorly.

He was a mech of keen observation but his ability to properly relate the social intricacies he saw  had yet to catch up to the legendary thing it would become.  He also failed to mention a few key things. Some of which he himself didn’t learn until later.

Some things that weren’t even created until later.

Like the meaning of placement. What more visible marks meant and how they related specific things.

Explanations that would have really helped Ratchet out, several million years later, when Deadlock once again awoke with a struggle, ripping lines and wires out of himself faster than Ratchet could put them back in. Even prepared Ratchet was failing, and after all that had happened, after all he’d done to keep Drift online, he was _not_ going to lose the mech now.

If he had known them, the different meanings marks and scars could have, Ratchet would have aimed his own better when he finally lost all patience (and half his sanity), threw his weight down on Deadlock and raked his teeth across the gunner’s neck.

Had he known he wouldn’t have gone for the ‘Con’s neck at all.

xXx 

Shocked red optics stared up at Ratchet, the berserker rage knocked aside. Deadlock stilled, frozen completely. Logic fought with age-deep social norms and for a second, the gunner thought his over-stressed systems were finally giving out.

But no--he was here, he was alive and the pain of being marked, of the deep scratches made by denta pulsed above every other hurt as Deadlock hyper-focused on it--and the mech who’d marked him.

Ratchet had Claimed him. All of him, full stop.

Mind, body, spark.

_His._

 


End file.
